


I Think You Should GOKU PROM With Me, or, How Ronaldo Completely Derailed Kevin's Senior Year And Doesn't Even Feel Bad About It

by BoyHowdy420



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 10:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18547585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoyHowdy420/pseuds/BoyHowdy420
Summary: kevin is popular. ronaldo... is not. that doesn't stop either of them from falling in love.





	1. first quarter

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: i would like to thank my best fwend ube for enlightening me, being my shoulder 2 whine on, and proofreading/screaming along the way, nummy n bone for providing unending enthusiastic support, and cj and ari for jumpin on the crazy train w us, have fun kids <3
> 
> oh uh, also, the all-lowercase is, a stylistic choice, if it makes it super hard for ppl to read i can upload an alternate version w more... traditional capitalization lol. lmk in the comments if its an issue for u!

-

so! it’s finally senior year! kevin's basically #1 mr. popular, if he had to say so himself. he’s captain of the golf and tennis teams, first chair cello in the school orchestra, head of the yearbook committee, and only not class president again because he didn't run this year. it’s not like he doesn’t have enough stuff going on to fill out his extracurriculars on college applications, you know, he’s got enough on his resume already.

ronaldo is possibly the least cool person in the entire school because he does things like 1) dress the way he does, 2) talk about anime in class and public and has anime posters plastered all over the inside of his locker, 3) is in fucking marching band, math club, and robotics club, and 4), raised absolute hell freshman year until he was allowed to start a GSA with his ex girlfriend jane and her girlfriend kiki and came out as bisexual as soon as the first meeting convened. last but absolutely not least, he and his dad run one of the only food establishments in beach city, which would be enough to make one a social pariah in most small town high schools, much less theirs, where the population is made up of teens bussed in from a handful of gossipy, close-knit, insular beachside communities. everyone knows who kevin is, but everyone knows who ronaldo is, because he’s either tried to talk them into attending the GSA or checking out his blog, or he’s handed them a basket of fried potato products while working in the fry shack, usually both.

kevin's mostly aware of ronaldo because of the GSA thing, but also because everybody in his friend group is relentlessly entertained by making fun of ronaldo’s shameless dorkiness. kevin joins in laughing but like. it's high school. he's got other, more interesting and more easily accessible targets to tease, their classes haven’t overlapped, it's whatever. he can appreciate the not-giving-a-fuck attitude and determination, even if the rest of the guy makes him want to cringe right out of his sneakers.

except, first quarter senior year the orchestra director wants kevin to do a quintet with other students for the regional ensemble contests, one of whom is a mystery bassoonist from the concert band. when they all gather together for their first rehearsal on a friday just after school, it turns out to be ronaldo.

he's a lot quieter in person than kevin expected, and more serious; he's the first to have his stand, sheet music, and instrument set up, and he readily takes charge to get the two violinists and violist organized when it's clear they didn't look through the arrangement beforehand. his energy visibly picks up when they're actually playing, the leg his bassoon isn’t braced on bouncing as he taps his foot to keep time, but he doesn't bring up anything weird the entire time. kevin isn't staring or anything, it's just... intriguing, is all.

when kevin's packing up someone walks up and stands next to him. judging by the grubby gym socks and worn out tevas, it's Him. the nerd. kevin doesn't stop clasping his cello case shut. "what do you want, geek."

he can see ronaldo jump in his periphery. when he speaks the theatricality he's renowned for makes a comeback. "o-oh! right! uh, i was just gonna aaask... would you, like to practice some more this weekend? i figure, since we have the most solos--and, might i say, for good reason--it couldn't hurt to practice together! we could do it at my house if you don't mind driving, i know you have a car--"

kevin stares at him blankly, bookbag and music binder under one arm, cello case dangling from the other. “what."

ronaldo hesitates, looking a little nervous, before repeating himself. "uh, would you like to--"

"no, i heard you, i just." he gives ronaldo a once over, eyes lingering on the anime tee, the ragged hems of his shorts, the fucking socks and sandals combo. It’s killing kevin just to look at this kid. he knows his disgust is visible on his face because ronaldo physically takes a step backward, face falling. well, if he’s already hurt his feelings, might as well commit. “why the hell would i spend time with a loser like you in my free time? there’s parties to go to, races to win, ladies to dance with. some of us actually have social lives, you know.”

usually when kevin’s mean to people it doesn’t really feel like anything, but watching ronaldo’s face fall actually feels pretty shitty, though he’s not sure why. he watches fryboy walk away dejectedly and wishes he had just offered him a ride home instead of being a dick.  


-

kevin will swear until the day he dies that he didn’t mean for any of the rest of it to happen. it all starts with that first rumor.

after seeing ronaldo walking through the lobby before homeroom on monday, he mentions to one single friend that ronaldo the GSA anime freak asked him to hang out alone over the weekend, forgetting to emphasize that it was to rehearse music. by lunchtime, their massive spiderweb of friends has all heard a warped version of the truth: that ronaldo asked kevin on a Date and was harshly shut down. kevin’s in the middle of harshly shutting down the first person he told when ronaldo enters the cafeteria. a hush falls as people notice him, starting at kevin’s table, and then all of his friends erupt into jeering laughter. it only takes a few seconds for the rest of the room to start laughing, even though they can’t know why it started, and only a few seconds more for ronaldo to meet his eyes from across the room, turn bright red, and storm out again.

the rest of the student body is vibrating with rumors by the end of the day. ronaldo doesn’t come to school for the rest of the week.  


-

thankfully he comes back to school the next monday. he ignores kevin when he tries to apologize before rehearsal and won’t make eye contact with any of them, packing up as soon as they’re done and slipping out of the room before kevin even has his case open. he doesn’t even stop to put his reed away. kevin snaps at the violinists when they titter about what they think they know and corrects the story when instead of backing down they start teasing him. all of this is fucking annoying as hell, though he’s not stupid enough to forget that it has to be so much worse for ronaldo.

whenever ronaldo walks into the cafeteria there’s a smattering of rude laughter that runs back and forth through the student body, and he turns that same angry, embarrassed red every weekday for a month. people deface GSA posters with juvenile-looking graffiti until he stops printing and putting up new ones. someone pries his locker open and throws crumpled posters all over the hall; someone else douses his gym clothes in cologne so strong it doesn’t wash out for weeks. things go on like that for the rest of the quarter, though they die down towards the end. kevin feels horrible.  


-


	2. second quarter

-

in october kevin’s health class switches to study hall in the computer lab off of the library, where ronaldo is an aide. the quintet still practices most days after school, and ronaldo still isn’t really talking to any of the rest of them, but he’s not booking it out of the room anymore, and he’s turned the page for kevin a few times while practicing, which. that probably has more to do with his single minded focus on music when they’re there than anything else, but thinking about it makes kevin’s stomach feel weird anyway, and once it makes his palms go sweaty on his bow and he almost drops it in the middle of a solo. what the fuck is going on?

one day in study hall he watches ronaldo moving boxes of donated books to be organized and reshelved for the entire class period, entranced by how easily he can scoop up the boxes it took two other students to bring in. it’s only when the bell rings that he realizes the girl next to him had been trying to get his attention for at least the last ten minutes while he was preoccupied. when he looks back up ronaldo is pulling off his button down and wiping a wrist across his forehead. the sleeves of his t-shirt pull taut across his thick arms; when he hefts his overloaded backpack up onto his shoulder it makes muscles stand out in his arm and chest that kevin has only seen on the wrestling team.

kevin’s face goes hot; his mouth goes dry. 

-

this cannot be happening.

-

it takes him a full month to come to terms with it. “it” being his big, awkward, unfortunate crush on the walking embodiment of the “yikes” emoji. there’s a lot of staring at the ceiling, screaming into pillows, and long drives along the beach. it’s a whole thing. by the time he’s accepted it (or resigned himself to it), the ensemble contest is only a few weeks away and he’s having trouble just sitting next to ronaldo through their arrangement without bursting into flames. 

kevin turns pages during ronaldo’s solos when he can, now; the first time he does, they reach for it at the same time and knock knuckles. ronaldo almost sputters but manages to regain his fingering and recover, and he lets kevin handle it after that. he has to sit and watch ronaldo heft boxes of books for a whole hour every day before they rehearse, and sometimes their knees press together while they’re playing, and god, he can’t wait until this quarter is over. this is like crushing on sabina all over again. this is like puberty all over again. he wishes he could actually hate it.

-

they get a top rating of 1 in regionals, the second weekend in december. ronaldo uses his latest growth spurt and book-hauling strength to pull all of them in for a group hug, kevin wedged under one arm; once all of the others have hugged back, kevin lets himself gingerly slide an arm around ronaldo’s waist and squeeze. he gets to meet both the elder and the younger frymans. it’s weird to meet them like this, when he knows they have to know what ronaldo thinks kevin did, but they’re both nice enough, congratulating the rest of the quintet before heading out to the car.

they end up walking out together, and kevin’s just mustered up the nerve to apologize for the whole rumor situation when ronaldo turns to him, congratulates him again, and heads off on his merry way.

kevin stands there for a few minutes before shaking himself and walking to his own car. at least competition is over with. maybe this… crush will die out once they’re not spending two hours in close proximity to each other every weekday. it can’t hurt to be hopeful, right?

-


	3. third quarter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ooo is gettin gud...

-

somehow he missed that, in order to be a library aide, ronaldo would have had to opt out of study hall for the same period. which means that when kevin walks into art class in january, he sees ronaldo at a table in the back corner. they make awkward eye contact across the room. kevin waves out of reflex; by the time his hand is up ronaldo has visibly winced and turned back to the person sitting beside him.

kevin lets his hand drop and slinks to an open seat on the opposite side of the room to lick his wounds. rejected by the king of east coast weeaboos. in front of an entire class, no less! thankfully most of the other students must be underclassmen, since he hardly recognizes most of them, but. still. it’s the principle of the thing. nobody rejects kevin. 

-

he takes a week to regroup after that, because being so readily dismissed threw him for a loop, but eventually decides that what the hell, senior year is almost half over, he might as well see if he can turn this thing around. even if he never returns the crush, ronaldo still deserves an apology. better start there.

-

starting there is easier said than done. he’s closer to the door than kevin is in art class, still seems to purposefully slide into the hallway before kevin can get close, and now that competition is over, that single hour is the only overlap in their schedules. after another week, it’s clear that drastic measures may have to be taken.

he gets lucky, for once, out of the blue, and finds ronaldo at his locker an hour and a half after school in an otherwise empty hallway. kevin just finished the first golf team meeting of the year and is confused as to why ronaldo’s there until he realizes it must be for robotics club. ronaldo glances up and grimaces as he approaches, rushing to grab whatever he’s looking for from his locker and go; before he can, kevin’s right there, bearing down on him with an accusatory finger extended. 

“you. YOU have been avoiding me,” he sneers, jabbing with his finger until ronaldo backs up into the lockers. he’s not noticing the flex of muscle under his finger, he’s not. “i’ve been trying to talk to you since first fucking quarter!”

ronaldo regroups, straightens up and scoffs. “yeah, sure, about what? how you hate me enough to make me the laughingstock of the whole school over something that didn’t even happen? i hope you can understand why i’m not eager to revisit that.” he puts a hand on kevin’s shoulder and starts to push him back; kevin pushes back with his finger on ronaldo’s chest.

“listen to me! that wasn’t what you think!” ronaldo doesn’t make a move to push away again, so he lets his hand drop and pushes it through his hair. dealing with this is so fucking frustrating. “the monday after that first rehearsal, i mentioned you asking about weekend practice to one person. one. i didn’t tell anyone that you asked me out, and i definitely didn’t tell anyone to spread rumors about it.” he rubs the back of his neck, and checks the hallway both ways to make sure it’s still deserted, before continuing. “i guess i didn’t specify it was about rehearsal when i told derek, though, and it all took off from there. anyway, i was going to apologize right after it happened, but then you started literally running away from me!” this gets emphasized with another finger jab to the chest.

ronaldo huffs and rolls his eyes. “right. it’s my fault you couldn’t apologize. anything else you’d like to blame me for while we’re here?”

“making this conversation way harder than it has to be, maybe?” they glare at each other for a second before kevin makes himself take a deep breath and chill out a bit. “what i wanted to say to you, which i have been trying to say for months now, even if you were justified in avoiding me--” ronaldo closes his mouth “--is that i am honestly, truly sorry about all of it. i’m sorry for the rumors, and for people fucking up your GSA posters. none of that should have happened. okay?” ronaldo just nods, eyes wide. kevin relaxes a little and takes a step back. the hardest part is done. now the follow through. “even if i were the type to spread rumors, which i’m not, you’re like, the only person i know who doesn’t usually give a shit what people think about them. i respect that, i’m not gonna target you for it.”

“i mean. i know you saw me walk out of lunch, that first day,” ronaldo says, slumping against the lockers as the tension drops out of his shoulders. he’s still a few inches taller than kevin, even slouching. kevin gulps. “i’m not totally unaffected, at least not all the time. mostly i just think it’s dumb to let other people’s opinions keep you from doing what you want to do, you know?” their eyes meet and kevin can’t help but nod, even though he can’t relate. there’s all kinds of things he’s avoided doing because of what others might think. “it’s hard not to care when people are breaking into your locker and tearing your club posters off the walls, though.”

this has gone better than kevin could have anticipated. unfortunately, when he glances at his watch he realizes he has a cello lesson in half an hour, with a twenty minute drive to go. “shit, i’ve gotta go. but, hey.” he holds out a hand to shake. “we cool? i don’t want to keep accidentally chasing you out of art class.”

ronaldo smiles and shakes his hand firmly. “we’re cool, as long as you can manage not to spread any more rumors about me.”

his hand is huge, and warm, and his thumb rubs once over the back of kevin’s hand, and instead of whatever he had originally planned to say, he blurts out, “ha ha, imagine how bad it would’ve been if they knew we’re both bi,” flushes bright red as he realizes what he just said, and stutters a goodbye before dropping ronaldo’s hand and scuttling down the hall as fast as his skinny jeans will let him. when he dares to peek back before pushing through the doors to the parking lot, ronaldo is still standing there, watching after him.

what the fuck. what the fuck.

-

okay, so, all things considered, even with that embarrassing admission at the end, the conversation could be considered a success. his apology was delivered, accepted, and a better second impression made than the first. that’s progress, no matter how you look at it. plus, it’s not like ronaldo is going to tell anyone, not when he’s as eager to forget the first quarter fiasco as kevin is, if not more. spreading anything about it at this point would just bring it all roaring back, which neither of them want, so it’s fine. it’ll be fine.

right?

kevin panics all night and through most of the next day at school, snapping at his friends and spacing out during class. but no rumors surface, and there’s no staring and giggling, and when he walks into art class ronaldo looks over and gives him a chin jerk of acknowledgement and a smile and never brings it up, and it’s… fine.

-

the next week, their art teacher rearranges half of the seating chart for seemingly no reason at all, leaving kevin at the table right in front of ronaldo instead of on the other side of the room. his stomach jumps and flutters at the grin ronaldo gives him as he heads to his new seat. although it’s an unexpected development, it turns out to be a boon from above, because now he’s close enough to eavesdrop and even participate in the conversations ronaldo has with his tablemate, someone he knows from math club. they’ve been introduced, but ronaldo had been wearing an especially tight fitting shirt that day, and frankly kevin couldn’t be bothered to remember the other nerd’s name when there were straining seams to be beheld.

at night, he continued to plan. clearly he couldn’t trust himself with one on one in-person conversations just yet; as much as he liked to pretend he could keep his cool, ronaldo seemed to get under his skin like no one had in a long time, and made him say and feel things before he even knew what they would be. he’d already spilled the thing he was trying to keep closest to his chest, so god only knew what might come out of his mouth if they were face to face and ronaldo happened to do something demonstrating strength, or unashamed vulnerability like last time when he was honest about how he’d felt first quarter, or, god forbid, another tight t-shirt. 

when he really thought about it, notes were the best way to go, since he definitely didn’t know anyone with the nerd’s number (and couldn’t ask him for it himself without immediately giving himself away, because why would he need ronaldo’s number otherwise), and he didn’t think he could survive embarrassing himself like he did again without abandoning his quest altogether and like… finishing school online, or something. but notes about what? they didn’t have much in common, and even the things they did have, like music, consisted of experiences different enough that they weren’t really relatable.

the idea finally came to him the first friday in his new seat, as he listened to ronaldo raving to his friend about something his ex, jane, was planning for the GSA, and mulled over how cool it was that he was friends with his ex when she’d had something so big she wasn’t telling him (though, as he thought about it more, it’s not like he knew he liked guys before this year, so… who knows what was going on there). he can’t handle a one on one in person, but if he writes down the nice things he’s thinking, he can self censor anything too embarrassing and keep it anonymous until he’s got the guts to admit to it. god, this is straight out of a young adult novel, why didn’t he think of this sooner?!

-

that weekend he took a few hours to write as many notes as his wrist could handle (he can’t risk his cello and piano scholarships, so the hands come first), as devoid of identifying characteristics as he could make them, then folded them up tight, labeled them clearly with the intended recipient’s name, and set them discreetly by the door to his room just in case one of his parents poked their head in on the off chance they stopped home between trips. then he sat with his head in his hands for a while, questioning how his senior year had turned into a mad dash after someone he would have scoffed at the idea of liking mere months ago. not one of his proudest moments, but he rose from it even more committed to his course than before.

monday morning he carefully selects the first of the notes and drives to school early, charming ronaldo’s locker number out of one of the office ladies, and bribing one of the freshman violinists with a promo on instagram to get him to drop the note in ronaldo’s locker sometime during the day without peeking, under penalty of callout post. this backfires somewhat because the kid ends up waiting until the afternoon, so art class brings no news of receipt. there’s no way ronaldo would be able to keep quiet about something like that, kevin figures. he sticks around only long enough at the end of the day to see that ronaldo is looking at something small bemusedly in front of his locker before ducking out the door, anxious and giddy with success. he has a full two weeks of notes written out, several upcoming after school meetings to give him dropoff windows, and there’s still two months till prom.

that realization stops him in his tracks as he reaches his car, keys in hand. what the hell is he going to do about prom? does he actually like the biggest dweeb around enough to want to show up at prom, together, in front of the entire senior class, even though that’s guaranteed to make him a laughingstock in his own friend group? it’s extremely unfortunate, but the answer seems to be… yes, absolutely.

he panics quietly in the car for exactly ten minutes and manages to shake himself out of it just in time to make it to tennis practice.

okay. okay. he still has two months. this is workable. this is fine. the notes are already started; he’ll just work those up to asking ronaldo to meet him somewhere the monday before prom, where he’ll... ask ronaldo if he’d like to go. to prom. with him. together. god, this is going to be so humiliating. at least he’s already got a suit ready, so it’ll just be a matter of getting ronaldo a tie to match… assuming he says yes, anyway. thank god they sit close enough in class to talk now; he’ll have to try not to get so distracted by ronaldo’s… everything, all the time, and pay attention enough to like, actually get to know him, instead of just appreciating the view. 

good fucking luck.

-

the rest of the quarter is mostly uneventful, which is a blessing, considering kevin’s so high on feelings for the first time in his life that he wouldn’t notice if the school burned down around them. they talk in class and kevin hears stories about his life and writes down all the big, gay things he’s feeling to drop into ronaldo’s locker (or intimidate freshmen into doing it for him, he’s not stupid enough to get caught by doing it himself all the time), and he could swear with each passing day ronaldo pays more attention to him than anyone else in the room. he even stoops to mainlining the entire archive of ronaldo’s conspiracy theory blog; he’s so far gone he thinks it’s cute instead of hilarious or scary. the only real bummer is when the robotics team goes to states for a whole ass week. art class without him drags so much that kevin skips the rest of the week.

once, he walks into the classroom to see ronaldo hurriedly stuffing a very familiar unfolded note into his backpack, and he has to hold himself back from doing a 180 and going right back out the door. but there’s no one to blame but himself, and ronaldo’s already looked up and seen him, so he enters and drops into his seat with a disaffected, “hey,” as if he isn’t quivering with anxiety. it’s not the last time it happens, and it doesn’t get less scary.

as he learns more about ronaldo’s interests and preferences, an idea for the all-important promposal starts to take form in the back of his mind. it’s possibly the corniest thing he’ll ever do in his life, right after dropping anonymous love notes in someone’s locker, but with ronaldo, corny would probably go over better than extravagant any day, so he’s pretty sure he’s got this in the bag.  


once he figures out how the hell to draw these spiky anime characters, anyway. art class didn’t prepare him for that at all.

-


	4. fourth quarter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :3c

-

the final stretch of the year finally starts to pick up momentum. they get reminders about graduation weekly, caps and gowns start coming in, people start receiving college acceptance letters… and more importantly, art class rotates to computer science, where on the first day, ronaldo grabs kevin by the arm and makes sure they get seats next to each other so they can whisper in the chilly quiet of the lab. the strong, confident grip on his bicep gives kevin goosebumps for the rest of the day.

-

sitting right next to him for a whole hour every day is kind of heaven, but mostly a very particular kind of hell. the kind where kevin has to withstand a literal torrent of geek speak and references (that he’s slowly coming to understand, much to his horror), when all he wants to do is focus on the way ronaldo’s forearms and hands flex while he’s typing, and slowly combust over their feet bumping together under the table. 

he kind of gets used to it. but only kind of.

-

the notes (and the big gay feelings he’s for some reason still determined to put in the notes) just keep coming. if kevin’s home and not doing homework, practicing an instrument, eating, or sleeping, he’s writing. he’s never written this much in his entire fucking life, including papers for school. thank god he’s ambidextrous, or his dominant wrist would be killing him. he even jots down thoughts for later in an app hidden deep in folders on his phone, when an idea strikes him and he’s not safely at his desk in his room. 

it’s almost enough to make him wish ronaldo was the type to appreciate anonymous gifts instead, stuff he wants but can’t afford for himself even with the tips he earns from working at the fry shop; kevin could list three games and four DVD sets in particular he knows ronaldo wishes he could get his hands on, and that’s just what’s come up in the last week of class. 

but after having so much personal contact, he’s gotten the distinct feeling that wouldn’t go over so well, especially when it turned out to be kevin on the “from” end of the gift tag. he knows he comes off as condescending on a good day, and everyone in the county knows his family has money thanks to his mom’s last trial hitting the evening news cycle; no way that kind of gesture would be interpreted right. so, more mushy notes, it is.

on one hand, it’s horribly annoying to feel this compelled to pour his heart out to someone he barely knows with only the precarious veil of anonymity between safety and total social annihilation. on the other hand... it’s kind of a relief not to need to filter everything he’s thinking through the lens of being popular before saying it, which he would have to do with literally any other person in their school, particularly any of his own friends. knowing that ronaldo doesn’t give a fuck if he’s seen as cool, or even if kevin is seen as cool, takes so much pressure off his shoulders it makes him feel almost giddy.

-

three weeks before prom their computer teacher is out sick for a day, and the sub they bring in passes around a sign-in sheet for attendance before they all get turned loose on the tiny portion of the internet the school firewall lets them access. kevin is busy looking up the latest list of proxies so they can run words with friends when the sub isn’t looking, and doesn’t notice the sign in sheet coming around until ronaldo waves it in his face.

“god, quit it! gimme that.” he snatches it away and scribbles his name down before shoving it at the kid on his other side. when he leans back into his own seat he jostles ronaldo, who’s looming over him and looking after the sign-in sheet with a weird look on his face. “move over,” kevin mutters, “you’re in my space.”

ronaldo turns the weird look on him for a second, staring into his eyes just long enough to make the hair on the back of kevin’s neck stand up, then obligingly leans back into his own seat with a chuckle, hands up appeasingly. “sorry, dude. i just, uh, thought i saw someone’s name on there that i didn’t expect, is all!” his mouth keeps twitching, like he’s having trouble not smiling for some reason. kevin snorts and goes back to finding a proxy site.

as the sub calls for their attention and starts explaining the simple formatting project they’ve been left to attempt, it dawns on kevin that ronaldo might have seen him write his name down, which wouldn’t be an issue, except he’d signed the sheet with the carefully manicured print he’s been painstakingly recording his feelings in over the last two months. the print he’s used almost exclusively on the anonymous notes he’s been slipping into ronaldo’s locker. he’s not dumb enough to use his normal scribbly handwriting for something requiring anonymity, especially when they’ve had classes together since before he started writing notes and there was a chance it would be recognized, but he’s written so many fucking notes recently that sometimes he writes that way automatically. like he did just now. 

his blood runs cold.

fuck. fuck. god. okay. there’s still, technically, a chance he didn’t see well enough to know for sure. the lights in the lab are dim, and ronaldo’s complained before about having a hard time reading under them. plus he did shove the paper to the kid next to him pretty quickly; maybe he didn’t get more than a glance?

he peeks surreptitiously at ronaldo out of the corner of his eye. he doesn’t seem to be acting funny, at least no funnier than usual; he seems fully preoccupied with trying to dig something out of his backpack and is swearing quietly to himself as the overloaded zipper keeps splitting open over a textbook. kevin tries hard not to get fully preoccupied with the way his shirt is riding up. he forces himself to look at his screen and starts pulling up proxies to distract himself. fuck, it’s hard to type with your hands shaking this hard.

ronaldo sends him a words with friends request like normal; kevin sweats bullets overthinking every word either of them sends until it becomes clear he’s reading way too far into things and needs to chill. ronaldo’s quieter than usual but not sending him any weird looks or words, and if he keeps being so tense and curt he’s going to give himself away just by overreacting. he’s in too deep to be exposed by anything less than signing his name at the bottom of the very last, he can’t fuck it up now, not like this.

-

somehow, by the grace of some god somewhere, it doesn’t come up again, and ronaldo doesn’t start doing anything noticeably different. it feels a little anticlimactic, honestly; he expected some kind of reaction, more specifically a negative one. if anything, ronaldo talks to him even more than he already did. there’s even a definite uptick in physical contact in the form of shoulder clasps and legs touching under the table. and there’s no reason either of those things would be happening if he really suspected kevin to be the sender of the notes… unless. 

unless… he found that fact to be a good thing. for some reason.

kevin has somehow managed this entire time to avoid thinking too deeply about whether his feelings are reciprocated; this whole crush is taking up enough of his time without catastrophizing over that in addition to the thought of complete social ruin upon ever recognizing the object of his feelings in public. it seems way too easy to find out, like this, after everything, that… maybe they are kinda mutual. but he also can’t think of any other way to interpret the increased attention and closeness. so, like. that’s gotta be it. 

right?

-

even though this should make him feel better, it only makes the anxiety surrounding the whole thing more intense. for all the effort he’s put into this, he never really expected anything good to happen. he definitely didn’t expect for it to work.

-

the monday before prom, kevin barely gets to school on time, having massively overslept his alarm after perfecting his promposal poster until the wee hours of the morning. the final note containing the promposal location is in his pocket, and folded within it is the match to kevin’s prom ticket sitting on his dresser at home. the butterflies in his stomach are so intense he can’t stand to eat anything at lunch. when he slides the note through the slats of ronaldo’s locker, his hands shake; his stomach bottoms out as soon as it leaves his fingers and for just a second he wants nothing more than to take it back. 

but he can’t. and ronaldo probably won’t go to his locker for the rest of the day, so he just has to make it through computer science, and then get his ass down to the park by the boardwalk before ronaldo’s bus drops him off in beach city. he’s done this before (on an ill-thought out attempt to “just drop by” the fry shop one afternoon. turns out ronaldo was off that day because it was d&d night, which… shouldn’t be endearing but definitely is. his snarky younger brother peedee did not seem impressed by kevin even a little bit. it was horrible.) easy. no big deal.

comp-sci goes smoothly, almost suspiciously so. when he walks through the door ronaldo grins at him and he feels his heart skip a beat like he’s only ever read about in the young adult novels he’ll never admit he reads ravenously in his spare time. the whole thing is incredibly sappy and gross. 

after launching out of his seat as soon as the bell rings, he gets out of the building and to his car before most of the buses have even pulled up, and arrives at the park half an hour early, dorky poster in hand, perched on the bench with the best lighting, posed to exude casual confidence, looking like a fucking tool. after a final check in his pocket mirror he settles in to wait and watches the entrance closest to the boardwalk.

and he waits.

and waits.

and waits.

by the time the sun sets around 8pm he’s miserable and barely holding it together. the poster gets halfheartedly jammed in the nearest trash can, since he didn’t sign it and definitely didn’t show it to anybody before getting it out of the car that afternoon. ronaldo’s unspoken rejection sits heavier and heavier in his stomach as he drives home, and eventually he has to pull over to scrabble for the emergency tissues in the glovebox before he makes a mess of his shirt or drives off the road. god, he’s made such an ass out of himself, what the fuck was he thinking? getting so stupid over someone who apparently couldn’t even bother to reject him in person. and he’d thought he had a good idea of who he was falling for… pathetic. 

thank god his final grade in computer science doesn’t matter this close to graduation, because there’s no fucking way he’s sitting next to ronaldo in a silent computer lab for three whole weeks after this.  
the rest of his night is spent staring at the ceiling, indulgently maudlin playlist blasting, pretending there aren’t tears streaming down his face until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

-

even after the late night, kevin wakes up an hour before his alarm on tuesday with a heavy sense of dread in his stomach at the thought of the week still ahead of him. he’ll have to rearrange half of his routes to class because now that he and ronaldo are friendly and actively looking for each other in the crowd, they bump into each other in the hallways constantly, and there’s nowhere he wants to have a confrontation less than in the middle of the school during class change. and as he knows personally, it’s pretty easy to find out someone’s locker number from the office staff; charm isn’t even particularly needed, you could probably say you needed their number for a project in all honesty. which means that if ronaldo really wanted to corner him, he would have an easy time figuring out where to wait, since kevin refuses as a matter of course to carry more than two classes’ worth of books and folders with him in order to protect his posture from the weight of an overloaded messenger bag, and therefore stops by his locker more than a lot of other seniors.

he rubs his eyes until he sees stars and groans. this is going to take drastic measures. depending on how poorly today goes, he might even have to text his parents to ask if they’ll call him in sick for the rest of the week.

thank god his friends are mostly under the impression that he’s an anxious wreck recently due to college stress, like the rest of them, instead of knowing to attribute it to a crush or another person. he was starting to feel bad for not saying anything to anyone, since they are his friends, but it turns out staying silent may have been the right call, after all.

-

he takes advantage of waking up early to get to school right as the doors are unlocked, and spends twenty minutes cleaning out his locker entirely so he won’t have reason to go back to it before the end of the semester. it’s not like seniors have homework in may and june, anyway. they barely even have classes; he’ll just bring what he actually needs and turn his textbooks in all at once on the last day. throwing out the last of the loose papers crumpled in the bottom of his locker is almost a nice start to his day, until he remembers exactly why he’s there early to empty out his locker weeks ahead of time.

god, he thinks, why the hell did he do this to himself? managed to steer clear of messy feelings since the sabina incident freshman year, and now this clusterfuck. he should’ve said no to the quintet, all the way back in the fall; there wasn’t even room on his college applications for more extracurricular accomplishments. at the very least he should’ve asked who else would be involved, instead of just shrugging and saying yes because he didn’t have a good reason to refuse. dumbass.

the rest of the student body starts trickling in around the second trip to his car. by the time he’s entirely done the buses are arriving, and he takes that as his cue to get to homeroom before he sees any familiar ginger hair bouncing above the crowd. 

-

tuesday goes by with minimal difficulty, if you don’t count kevin still reeling with emotional devastation. he keeps a low profile in the hallways, goes a different way between every class to avoid their usual meeting points, and manages to slide unnoticed out the door to the seniors’ parking lot right as computer science should be starting. maybe ronaldo really is just going to ignore it all instead of trying to question or confront kevin at school. kevin’s not sure if that’s better or worse in the end, but at least he has extra time to get to his cello lesson tonight.

wednesday is a little bit harder, in terms of avoidance. he has to duck out of lunch early because ronaldo comes into the cafeteria and starts scanning the lunch tables with narrowed eyes, and he can’t bear to find out if it’s him they’re looking for, even if his friends look at him weird and whisper to each other as he sneaks away.

thursday is actually difficult because ronaldo also starts scrambling his routes to class, and more than once kevin has to do a full 180 and duck behind the nearest trophy case or football player for cover as ronaldo passes by. he’s late to half his classes because of it. plus he has to skip lunch entirely after peeking down the hallway to see ronaldo waiting, stone-faced, by the cafeteria door. he calls off his piano lesson for the first time in years so he can get something to eat and go home to sulk.

friday… friday is hell. ronaldo seems to lurk around every other fucking corner, and when he’s not he’s loitering by kevin’s locker with his arms crossed, looking surly, as if he’s the one that gets to be mad about any of this. he also camps out by the cafeteria entrance and the doors to the senior parking lot before computer science class, forcing kevin to loop around to the front of the school and risk being caught skipping by the front office, sweating bullets the whole time. at least he anticipated the cafeteria attempt and packed a lunch at the crack of dawn.

a large part of saturday is spent alternating between moping in his room with his indulgent soundcloud-rap playlists, meticulously ironing his purple suit in the laundry room, and painstakingly combing and spraying his hair into place. instead of the excitement he always thought he’d feel immediately before prom, he’s facing it down with a strong sense of anxiety and foreboding. he’d almost rather skip the dance entirely and fast forward straight to the booze-soaked afterparty his friends are holding, just so he can maybe forget that he feels like shit for a few hours. but if he no-showed at prom he’d have to explain to everyone why he wasn’t there, and the idea of that is even worse than sitting and watching everyone else dance for four hours in a soulless hotel ballroom.

three hours before prom, he slips into his suit, stops by the florist to grab the corsage he’d been hoping to pin to someone else’s chest, drives over to his friend’s house for pictures with the plastic box of flowers somehow staring him down from the passenger’s seat, and smirks half-heartedly through the photos while feeling absolutely hollow inside. the corsage matches his suit perfectly, though.  
so, like, you know. there’s that.

-

within half an hour of arriving to the hotel, shortly after a fancy dinner he was barely able to stomach, kevin finds himself braced over a sink in the bathroom furthest from the dance that hasn’t also been blocked off from frisky high schoolers. he’d excused himself to fix his tie, which was actually something that needed to happen, as the knot is going steadily more lopsided and loose by the minute, but instead of retying it he ended up just standing there, trying to convince himself not to go home after spending exactly ten minutes on the actual dance floor unsuccessfully trying to find his groove. he’s kevin, people will notice if he’s off his groove. he’s just about succeeded when the door swings open behind him and the person he least expected to see steps in.

he gapes at ronaldo in the mirror for almost a full minute, failing to fight down a mortified flush. this bathroom is a good few minutes’ walk from the ballroom; if he’s been found, ronaldo had to be looking for hiding spots. for him. he’s only marginally gratified to see the blush slowly climbing up ronaldo’s neck from under his… god, is that a tuxedo tee over those scuffed oxfords and baggy slacks? when did he start finding shit like that charming instead of horrendously tacky?

after a few minutes of silent staring, ronaldo rubs the back of his neck awkwardly and speaks up. “um, hey.”

kevin has to clear his throat to reply. “... hey.” he braces himself and turns to lean semi-casually against the counter. when ronaldo just shifts uncomfortably and doesn’t say anything else, he resigns himself to actually having this conversation. he’s not gonna be the one chickening out after all this time. “didn’t think i’d see you here.” ronaldo chuckles awkwardly.

“well, i wasn’t planning on coming, to be honest,” he admits, fiddling with something in his pocket. when he pulls it out, it’s the prom ticket kevin slipped into his locker. “but then my, uh, secret admirer stuck one in my locker on monday, so i thought… maybe i should investigate.”

“... oh.” kevin feels his whole face going red. he’d ask if it got hot in here but he already knows it's just him. at least this confirms his fears, that ronaldo has him figured out. 

“yeah.” the silence stretches out again between them as kevin desperately tries to sink into the floor. ronaldo watches him. kevin watches his shoes. eventually ronaldo seems to steel himself and takes a small step forward. “so, uh. when you invited me to meet you at the park, in that last note.” 

kevin’s sweating his ass off. this is fucking horrible. “mmhmm?”

“that was an actual, for-real promposal? not some kind of weird plan to embarrass me in front of all your friends again?”

“what?” kevin chokes out, whole body going cold. god, he’s going to be sick. whatever’s on his face makes ronaldo wince. his voice cracks when he speaks again. “th-that wasn’t even on purpose the first time! do you really think i’d do something like that?”

ronaldo meets that with a sheepish shrug. “well, i dunno, maybe it was stupid, but you did take three months to apologize after you and your friends made me the laughingstock of the school for a whole week.” he scuffs his shoes idly and mumbles, “can you really blame me for being cautious after that…?”

it’s kevin’s turn to watch him as ronaldo stares at the floor. it occurs to him that this is probably excruciating and awkward for both of them, and that if he hopes to salvage anything from this it won’t be by getting mad at him for being reasonably skeptical. after a minute he sighs and shifts his weight against the counter to stand a little straighter. “no, i guess not. i get it. probably would have been suspicious too, if i were you.” they both shuffle uncomfortably for a minute before kevin speaks again. “i’m still sorry that happened, by the way. i know i already apologized but, you know.”

ronaldo nods. “i know.”

“i didn’t tell them you asked me out, i just, i told them what happened, and they ran with the implications.” he didn’t… really mean to say that. but the way ronaldo’s looking at him makes him want to redeem himself.

ronaldo gives him a little lopsided smile. it makes kevin’s heart thud unevenly. “i know.”

“okay. good. cool.” he’s out of breath. why does he feel like he’s been running for the last ten minutes. “that’s, um, that’s good.” he realizes crossing his arms this tightly is creasing the elbows of his suit, and takes a moment to straighten his arms and shake the wrinkles out as best he can before bracing himself on the counter with his palms. maybe a more confident, less defensive stance will hide the fact that he’s basically quivering in fear of rejection.

ronaldo watches all of this quietly, hands in his pockets, before taking a few slow steps closer. kevin scoots backward with each one, until he’s almost boosted himself up onto the counter and straight into a sink. fuck, now he’s sweating again. 

ronaldo’s gaze is fixed on something right under his chin. kevin’s about to ask if he missed a spot shaving when he finally speaks.

“having some tie trouble?”

“h-huh?” kevin flushes all over again when ronaldo looks up at him with a smirk and takes another half step closer, so he’s just within kevin’s personal space. “oh, uh, yeah, i’m kind of shit at tying ties, because i never wear them? m-my dad usually helps but he’s-- out of town--” his brain grinds to a halt before he can finish explaining, because ronaldo reaches up and casually tugs the tie all the way loose before pulling it off entirely to drape it over his own shoulder. his big hands deftly flip kevin’s collar up and straighten it out perfectly before he can speak again. “what are you doing,” he hisses frantically, hands hovering between them, not sure whether to push him away or grab at his wrists.

“fixing my boyfriend’s tie,” ronaldo responds cheerfully as he presses creases in the tie out between his fingers.

kevin chokes on an inhale. “what. what?”

ronaldo meets his eyes with a playful smirk. “i mean, i figure that was the point of all the notes, right? didn’t make sense for prom to be the end goal.”

kevin is speechless, barely even able to draw breath through his shock. ronaldo seems to take his silence as acceptance, because he snaps the tie out and lays it around kevin’s neck, knuckles brushing his throat as he easily reties it. “plus, peedee sent me pictures of the prom sign you left in the park, which was specifically catering to my interests.” kevin’s face goes up in flames again. this has been the best and worst half hour of his life. “that didn’t leave too much room for interpretation, once i finally got to see it. neither did you skipping class for a whole week after i ditched you.”

kevin grabs one thick wrist as ronaldo smooths a hand down the length of the tie over his sternum and waits for him to make eye contact. “are you serious.”

“about what?” his other big hand settles in the curve of kevin’s waist; kevin has never seen anyone look this smug in his life. he’s really going to make him say it?

“you know.” kevin’s never blushed this much in his life. he’s embarrassed but still has to fight down a hysterical smile as ronaldo raises his eyebrows expectantly. he takes a deep breath to try and calm down a bit and manages to get the words out without choking. “about… being my boyfriend.”

“oh! that? yeah, i am!” ronaldo twists the wrist in kevin’s hold until he can fold their hands together, and takes the other hand off his waist to brush fingers over the hot flush on kevin’s cheek. “i mean, assuming i’m right about all of this.”

“about what?” kevin can’t help leaning into his touch.

“you liking me.”

“shit,” kevin says with a shaky laugh, “you got me, staging an elaborate rom-com courtship, just to make you hate me, sounds legit--”

“oh, is that what it was supposed to do?” ronaldo says, playing along as he inches closer. “should’ve written worse things about me in those notes, then. you definitely seemed pretty smitten.”

“guess i’ll have to do better next time.”

ronaldo huffs and threads their fingers together. “i’m trying to tell you that your plan worked, kev. you don’t have to do better next time. unless you wanted to keep up with the notes, i guess, it was cute.”

kevin is visibly melting from a combination of skin to skin contact and sheer relief and he doesn’t even care. he’s even given up on keeping the dizzy smile off his face. “hmm… maybe i’ll do it every once in a while. kinda felt nice to just write how i felt without worrying about if it was cool enough, or if it would get out and hurt my reputation…”

the hand on his face shifts down a bit to cup his jaw. they’re close enough to share body heat now; kevin feels like he’s burning up. “you didn’t think i’d try and get revenge or something, because of the thing first quarter?”

kevin can’t help scoffing. “you’re not a piece of shit, of course not. if you weren’t interested you’d just ignore them. and besides, i knew from class that you were excited to be getting them, i just didn’t know how you’d feel when you found out it was… me.”

“pretty psyched, to be honest.”

“thank god.” he can’t fight a relieved slump, letting his head fall to rest on a firm shoulder. “... i can’t believe this is actually fucking happening.”

ronaldo laughs. “same. king of the school and king of the nerds, talk about power couples.”

kevin hardly recognizes the giggle that bubbles out of him; he swats at ronaldo’s arm. “shut up, you dork.”

when he finally picks his head up again, ronaldo is gazing down at him with what can only be described as heart eyes, expression soft and open. “... you want to go dance?”

kevin can’t help another little giggle. “can you dance?” that gets one of the most melodramatic eye rolls he’s seen in his life.

“i started the GSA, of course i can dance.” they both snicker for a minute before he continues. “we did a recruitment video where all the officers danced to that one Beyoncé song. did you miss that assembly?”

“must have; i think i’d remember something like that.” he bites his lip on another laugh and does his best to ignore the butterflies in his stomach when ronaldo stares at his mouth. “kinda wanna see it now, honestly. if it were on your blog i would’ve seen it.”

ronaldo tears his gaze from his mouth, eyes wide. “you read through my blog?!” when kevin just nods he recovers surprisingly quickly. “guess you really were far gone on me, to look through all that. you’ll have to tell me what you thought sometime.”

“you’re missing the point…! is there a recording of that up anywhere!”

“yes, you freak!” they both burst into laughter; when it dies down they just look at each other sappily for a minute. it’s so sweet kevin could swear he’s getting cavities. “so do you want to dance or not?”

kevin puts a hand to his chest with a dramatic gasp. “and let our whole class see us together?” he holds the pose just long enough for ronaldo’s face to fall the slightest bit, and then grabs his hand again. “sure, let’s go start some more rumors.”

“ugh, you’re such a dick!” ronaldo whines, slumping against him and pulling him into a hug. “don’t make fun of me now…”

“can’t help it, sorry! i’m a dick, and for some reason you like me anyway!” kevin teases.

he doesn’t anticipate ronaldo pulling back to look him in the eyes seriously. “yeah, i do.”

the flush that had finally started to go down rises again in full force. “you can’t just say it straight out like that,” he gets out, strangled.

“don’t worry, there’s nothing straight about it.”

he sputters a laugh. “jesus!”

“it’s ronaldo, actually…” he watches kevin bust up laughing with such a fond expression on his face kevin could melt.

“god, shut up, i’m going to cry…” he gasps out eventually, only for ronaldo to put one big hand back on his cheek, tilt his face up, mutter a smug “you shut up,” and kiss him square on the mouth.

-

contrary to what some might assume, kevin isn’t the type to kiss and tell. so the next two or three minutes are their business and their business alone. he’ll just say that it was…

it was a really good time.

they do actually go back to the dance after that, and a few rumors are understandably sparked when they proceed to dance together the whole night without interruption, even for all the slow songs.  


for once, they couldn’t care less.

-


	5. the inspiration.....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the sign that started it all (and the picture peedee sent to ronaldo... lmao)

[ ](https://imgur.com/LGtRqPC)


	6. fourth quarter illustration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i commissioned my dear friend bo/bone/bonejanky/jankybones for a scene in fourth quarter... it came out perfectly and every time i look at it my heart grows three sizes!!!

[](https://imgur.com/CnPjchy)


End file.
